It would be fixable though if we know the issue. Then we could implement a rule saying if a break is allowed to finish (just as an example) 12 minutes or more ahead of the peloton, then the stage will automatically need to be re-run. None of us would see/know about it, because it would just be a rule internally for the reporters.
Obviously if this happens many times, it isn't viable at all, due to the time needed to re-run things, but if it happens 3-4 times pr. season I wouldn't see it as much of an issue.
The way how PCM has worked in the past, a re-run of a stage in a stage race will very likely end in almost the same scenario.
So if a stage allows a 20min gap, the re-run almost guaranteed will see the same.
Just like ollfardh a no from me regarding this. Not only due to the extra work for reporters.
roturn wrote:
The way how PCM has worked in the past, a re-run of a stage in a stage race will very likely end in almost the same scenario.
So if a stage allows a 20min gap, the re-run almost guaranteed will see the same.
Just like ollfardh a no from me regarding this. Not only due to the extra work for reporters.
I can not confirm this. For a while, my PC crashed every now and then while reporting (which was incredibly frustrating, but that's not the point ) and at times, when results were very weird, I would rerun the stage just for curiosity (while obviously keeping the original outcome for the report) and reruns often had very different outcomes.
I have also considered what SotD proposed a few times when I thought that the progression and outcome of a stage would be very unhealthy for the dynamic of a race. I haven't yet, but I honestly don't see it as a big problem. Obviously this would have to be limited to extreme cases, but for instance if there was a consensus that the Vuelta would have been more enjoyable without the Malecki situation (I'm not sure there is, I don't have a personal opinion on that), then why not be able to avoid that. As SotD says, no one would be able to tell.
I understand that you could think that the "integrity" of the game might be tarnished, but in my opinion it wouldn't be much different then for instance the changes we made to roads in sprint finishes - simply some adjustments to make the game more enjoyable.
Ollfardh wrote:
Would it be possible to filter out the bugged stages in advance?
I haven't played it since end of 2020, maybe they patched it, but if people are going to test the DB and play through the season then you can definitely isolate problematic stages and see what can be done
Concerning the yellow jersey curse: I definitely believe it is real, at least this year. I've done some pure sprint stage races so far:
In Juarez, the lead changed every day. Except for Guarnieri sprinting to 8th, the GC leader never got a stage Top 10.
In Barbados, Manninen, leader after stage 3, sprinted to 9th on the final day. No other stage Top 10s for the GC leaders.
Similar in Ras Tailteann: AKA, leader after stage 2, sprints to 8th on stage 3. That race might be too short to draw any conclusions, but it confirms the trend.
And finally, Amissa Bongo. Lobato del Valle the only GC leader being able to get Top 10s, even twice (6th and 8th), but never right there to fight for the win.
And I'm surely biased, but looking at Reinhardt's results pretty much confirms the theory: 7 - 1 - 16 - 2 - 1 -> guess which result was the one he got when wearing yellow...
Still, I'm not a big fan of splitting those stage races into several one-day races. In order to use the calculation tool, we'd have to bring the results into the exact same form as with the normal exports - and adding up times in PCM format isn't trivial. The manual calculation file might be fine with a different format, though.
The sprint tests are definitely interesting, but I'm not at all surprised to see Reinhardt perform so inconsistently. The team composition is far from optimal, and I'v observed quite often that the presence of Mundle (great rouleur, but very high aggressivity as well) often harms the results of the sprinters. Moreover, I've discovered last year that the leadout Stocker - Cissé works very well, while the additional presence of Scully and/or Merino Criado doesn't improve anything, on the contrary. I think I was lucky to discover a working train last year, but it still works well this season, so I don't think it's completely by chance.
Lastly, I'm not a big fan of the re-run thing, either. I definitely thought about doing so after the Spilak disaster in the Giro (and I actually did, but only after the whole race was done), but I guess those things are part of the game. Of course, if PCM20 is so broken that GCs often go to breakaways, then that's a bad thing. But iirc, we already had a GC winner thanks to a successful breakaway this year, and last year I guess it happened as well. Not often, but it can happen. And it should IMHO. Just not regularly.
Any chance of getting skin colour working again in the DB? I know there's far more practical changes being discussed and that's good, but I'm a bit sick of white Debesay and Areruya
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
I can try to work on this next year. Might need a reminding in the off season.
That said, as it`s easiest to do it how it`s pre set I guess, with continents/countries being linked to specific faces, this can`t really fix the problem as obviously continents and skin colour are not that straight and would need a manual editing of plenty of riders.
e.g. Dan Craven in Namibia or Manzin in France or Dlamini in South Africa.
So whoever can help out later on with such manual editing, can surely give me a PM.
Might be easiest to start from such Nation -> Formula to cover most and fix it manually from there. Can already be worked on immediately basically as rider IDs remain same.
roturn wrote:
I can try to work on this next year. Might need a reminding in the off season.
That said, as it`s easiest to do it how it`s pre set I guess, with continents/countries being linked to specific faces, this can`t really fix the problem as obviously continents and skin colour are not that straight and would need a manual editing of plenty of riders.
e.g. Dan Craven in Namibia or Manzin in France or Dlamini in South Africa.
So whoever can help out later on with such manual editing, can surely give me a PM.
Might be easiest to start from such Nation -> Formula to cover most and fix it manually from there. Can already be worked on immediately basically as rider IDs remain same.
How about just having a thread where everybody that wants to can pick the gene_ID_skincolour (think it's called like this in Dyn_Cyclist) for the riders that should be "different than the generic pre-set in the db" and at the end these riders are manually edited. The editing with excel editor is pretty straightforward and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes then.
roturn wrote:
I can try to work on this next year. Might need a reminding in the off season.
That said, as it`s easiest to do it how it`s pre set I guess, with continents/countries being linked to specific faces, this can`t really fix the problem as obviously continents and skin colour are not that straight and would need a manual editing of plenty of riders.
e.g. Dan Craven in Namibia or Manzin in France or Dlamini in South Africa.
So whoever can help out later on with such manual editing, can surely give me a PM.
Might be easiest to start from such Nation -> Formula to cover most and fix it manually from there. Can already be worked on immediately basically as rider IDs remain same.
How about just having a thread where everybody that wants to can pick the gene_ID_skincolour (think it's called like this in Dyn_Cyclist) for the riders that should be "different than the generic pre-set in the db" and at the end these riders are manually edited. The editing with excel editor is pretty straightforward and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes then.
Agree with this, isn't it how it used to be (combined with height/weight)? Not saying it must therefore be better, maybe it was changed for a reason but I remember it being a pretty simple process from the outside looking in
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
roturn wrote:
I can try to work on this next year. Might need a reminding in the off season.
That said, as it`s easiest to do it how it`s pre set I guess, with continents/countries being linked to specific faces, this can`t really fix the problem as obviously continents and skin colour are not that straight and would need a manual editing of plenty of riders.
e.g. Dan Craven in Namibia or Manzin in France or Dlamini in South Africa.
So whoever can help out later on with such manual editing, can surely give me a PM.
Might be easiest to start from such Nation -> Formula to cover most and fix it manually from there. Can already be worked on immediately basically as rider IDs remain same.
How about just having a thread where everybody that wants to can pick the gene_ID_skincolour (think it's called like this in Dyn_Cyclist) for the riders that should be "different than the generic pre-set in the db" and at the end these riders are manually edited. The editing with excel editor is pretty straightforward and shouldn't take more than 10 minutes then.
Agree with this, isn't it how it used to be (combined with height/weight)? Not saying it must therefore be better, maybe it was changed for a reason but I remember it being a pretty simple process from the outside looking in
I don't remember doing it for skin color in my time in MG, but it would pretty much be the same thing that we've done for height/weight, yeah. We could make it voluntary in the same way, and then I'd be happy to help put in the values.
As far as visual immersion, it would definitely be good to have varying skin colors and sizes for our riders, since that's basically all we can do to distinguish guys in PCM.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
A tactic I saw Lierse do multiple times, including in races I reported in such as Hanko (C1) and Berlin (HC): they have sprinter Bonifazio and rouleurs Vanbilsen and Biermans. Bonifazio is nowhere to be seen all day, not even caring about joining the sprint. Vanbilsen and/or Biermans (in what I've seen in those races mostly both) are near the front and either try to get a win by attacking or even kind of join the sprint instead of the Italian.
To see if this is just because the game hates Bonifazio or it is because of another reason (just preferring the rouleurs odds over him or whatever) I did some quick replays of Hanko with different scenarios to see what happens. F
Scenario 1: taking the two Belgian rouleurs out of the race. The best rouleur Lierse had now, except for Bonifazio himself, was Mareczko with 74 flat.
Take 1: Break of five, Lierse not trying to join the break and neither chasing it down. Bonifazio in the middle/back of the peloton all day, and with 15 km to go he comes forward on his own. 6 km to go as he is near the front of the peloton and attacks. He gets caught with like 1 km to go and finishes around 25th.
Take 2: Weemaes (second worst rouleur on the team) tries to join the break, but fails to do so. Lierse then doesn't chase the break. Bonifazio in the middle of the peloton again, just as previous time no teammates around him. Second game in a row he's spotted next to Saber for a while, who seems to be his buddy and is also a sprinter with good rouleur abilities, known for late attacks. Around the 15 km mark he comes forward again, all by himself. He reaches the front too late, or never exactly, and joins the sprint, while the "real" sprinters have already started sprinting. He takes over some riders, comes over the line together with some sprinters that did bad and some lead-outs, 14th position.
Take 3: Lierse doesn't try to join the break, doesn't care about chasing it down again neither. Bonifazio spotted next to Saber again. middle of the peloton most of the day. He comes forward by himself once again around the same spot, "together" with Saber like I had seen in previous races as well. Saber goes forward a bit quicker near the end and attacks late with late 4 km to go, iic he also did so in the race itself when I posted it. He holds on quite long actually, and finishes second ahead of teammate Boeckmans. Anyway, Bonifazio comes from very far with a great sprint to finish fifth.
The top sprinters are near the head of the race the whole day, but Bonifazio seems to be considered more of a rouleur than a sprinter. Kind of like Rowe from Xero in some races I have seen. My guess is that, with a weaker field, Bonifazio will actually be considered a "real" sprinter, as I've seen him joining sprints in stage races as well. First, another scenario.
Scenario 2: Biermans and Vanbilsen in the team in the same race/same sprinters from other teams, but Gaviria is the sprinter instead of Bonifazio, just to see if the rouleurs accept the domestique role when they have a favourite sprinter in their team (looking at spr-acc), not the list of favourites before the race.
Take 1: Lierse doesn't join the break, but is dedicated to chasing them down from the beginning with Gamper (73 fl I think). Gaviria always has a teammate ahead of him, Bolivar with 73 flat. Together with the rest of the team, Gaviria stays near the front of the peloton all day. After a while, they use Verwilst to chase the break as well. 70k to go as Bolivar's job is over and Gaviria now religiously follows the wheel of Biermans, the second best rouleur. 15 km to go as Vanbilsen doesn't care and is the first late attacker, kind of dropping his own sprinter to the middle of the peloton. Whereas Bonifazio never had any help, Gaviria has four teammates helping him back to the head of the race in absolutely no time. He then follows Vesely's and Swift's wheels to finish close to the win, with Ewan finishing a perfect lead-out.
Spoiler
Take 2: Very similar to first take. Lierse helps chasing the breakaway from the beginning and Gaviria following Bolivar immediately. Biermans takes over protecting duty again with 75 km to go. A few late attacks again, but no Lierse riders this time. 15 km to go as Gaviria no longer has support and stays up front by following other sprinter favourites' wheels. Mass sprint comes and Gaviria finishes third, once again a very close sprint, won by Swift this time.
So it's clear that having a real favourite sprinter makes sure he is not alone all day, like Bonifazio was three times in a row for example. Even the 78 rouleur was a clear domestique twice, whereas Vanbilsen got a free role it seems, being near the front of the peloton all day, but not working and trying to go his own chance when it was possible.
For the third and last scenario I wanted simply to check in one take whether the game would give Bonifazio the "Gaviria" role in classics as well, even when the two strongest rouleurs of the time were also there. I just cut in the amount of sprinting favourites to see if it would happen, with Bonifazio being around the top-5 to top-8 of riders when combining their spr-acc, with just less sprinters in general (no Ewan, Kump, Vesely, Kristoff and some others).
Take 1: Lierse didn't try to join the break and also didn't try to chase them down. This time, most of the riders were actually at the front of the peloton though, but nobody in front of Bonifazio like they had been protecting Gaviria. Bonifazio also obviously more near the front as in take one though, next to other "not favourite" sprinters such as Bouhanni, Itami, Cavendish, Itami, Awang, Krieger, etc. He doesn't get the "Gaviria treatment" as a top favourite, but he does follow Verwilst for 20 km between km 35 and 15, and then following other sprinter like Boeckmans and Stauff. He joins the bunch sprint and finishes second, while Vanbilsen and Biermans (not having done any work but just stayed near the front all day) sprint to a 18th and 23rd place.
Spoiler
I could of course do many more takes/scenario's, but I think there are already some things that are "obvious" (for me, keeping this and my reporting experience in mind, they seem to be at least). Very short the most important to me seems this though:
- Even if you have a top sprinting favourite in your team, if you have a strong rouleur this one will have a free role (look at Vanbilsen with Gaviria and sometimes in the season and these reports even a Saber with Boeckmans). Nevertheless, with a top sprinting favourite the rest of the team will really work for your sprinter.
- If you have an okay sprinter on the fav list (looking mainly at spr-acc), he will stay near the front normally, next to other sprinters outside the list of top favourites, and (try) join the sprint as well normally. Your rouleurs (even two) will get a free role and stay near the front as well, looking out for their own. The rest of your team also not really helping the sprinter that much then.
- In scenario one we see Bonifazio just not being considered a sprinter because of the stacked startlist, but as there are no Vanbilsen and Biermans he does get a sense of coming to the front (without help) near the end, which can be successful with a late attack or joining the sprint, but could very well see him finish 25th as well.
That's it, I found it useful, hope it can help some of you as well Edited by Nemolito on 03-05-2021 20:07
This sounds consistent with what I have seen. A top rouleur will not work for a top sprinter. In a classics this means the rouleur will attack even as the sprinter on his team sets himself up for a sprint. This is probably logical for a race like MSR where you play multiple cards but not so much in a less selective classic.
In a stage race the rouler becomes useless because the won't attack. This happens to AKA a lot.
Then I agree that whether a rouleur is treated as a sprinter or rouleur will depend on his stats and the startlist. But would add that if you have another sprinter he is likely to get the rouleur role. I believe it can also change stage-to-stage maybe because of recovery or other dynamics (see Holloway in the TDF). I think AKA suffers because his weak ACC undermines him being treated as a sprinter.
Finally stamina matters in selecting a rouleur no matter how long the race. This is why Vanbilsen gets the role ahead of Bonifazio.
I started to test whether any of that changes in 20 but hadn't done enough to be conclusive - but I am not optimistic.
Ollfardh wrote:
Thanks for that interesting research! So in conclusion you suggest MGUCI handing me 500 extra ranking points? Well, who am I to disagree with science?
I was actually rooting for 2500 extra points and promotion. Lierse terug in eerste klas!
This sounds consistent with what I have seen. A top rouleur will not work for a top sprinter. In a classics this means the rouleur will attack even as the sprinter on his team sets himself up for a sprint. This is probably logical for a race like MSR where you play multiple cards but not so much in a less selective classic.
In a stage race the rouler becomes useless because the won't attack. This happens to AKA a lot.
Then I agree that whether a rouleur is treated as a sprinter or rouleur will depend on his stats and the startlist. But would add that if you have another sprinter he is likely to get the rouleur role. I believe it can also change stage-to-stage maybe because of recovery or other dynamics (see Holloway in the TDF). I think AKA suffers because his weak ACC undermines him being treated as a sprinter.
Finally stamina matters in selecting a rouleur no matter how long the race. This is why Vanbilsen gets the role ahead of Bonifazio.
I started to test whether any of that changes in 20 but hadn't done enough to be conclusive - but I am not optimistic
.
Indeed. To all of that
If it is the same in pcm 20, I would not mind that much. Now that we know it and (kind of) figured it out, we also know how to plan more accordingly. There will still be chances for a rouleur to win in a stage race of course, by being in the break of the day on a flat stage (like Katrasnik in Uppsala for example), but usually not with a late attack like in the classics as you explained.
I'd like to see a focus on making sure that every pthc/hc band offers the same number of points available. Before the last minute change this season we were supposed to have one PTHC Band with 3 stage races (SR) and two classics (C) while other bands had 1SR+3C or 2SR+1C which is a massive scoring difference for the average team in those bands even when they have all the same total RDs.
Spoiler
the biggest difference was created by putting East Java (2RD SR) and Corsica (3RD) into the same band while other bands had races such s Portugal (9RDs) or Maroc (8 RDs) eating up all the RDs while offering comparably few points
Ideally I'd like to see every band consists of sth like 2SR + 2C (some bands could have a 8 RD SR and a 2RD SR while others could have 2 5RD SR) or at least a mix that every band is within +/- 10% of total points available.
PT Team Goals
This is sth i'm very biased on but it's sth that bothers me for years. PT is the only division that demands a goal in a stage race (GT goal), every other division allows managers to select only classic goals as well. I'd like to see the GT goal constraint changed to a GT or monument goal to allow more teams to focus on classics if they want.
Spoiler
I felt like i finally had to propose it after i have some riders that are good enough to make a top ten GT goal achievable for once
With Vineyards upcoming, I took another look at the CT calendar from a broad perspective, and I think it's really unbalanced for stage racers. I think next year we should take a look at the TTT vs. ITT km's specifically.
If we discount short prologues and mountain TT's, there are currently in my count 0, yes, ZERO, climbing stage races that include a significant ITT. In comparison, there are 3 climbing stage races that have significant TTT's (Trentino, Vancouver, Vineyards). It's possible I missed an ITT somewhere, but there's no way I missed three.
I'm not sure why the decision was made that we needed so many TTT's and no ITT's, but I really think it hurts the balance of the calendar. There has to be at least one race with an ITT or there's just no reason to sign a stage racer over a pure climber, especially since we're not seeing climbers with poor TT stats dropping off of their TTT trains nearly as much with PCM 18. The calendar currently does not reward versatility anywhere for CT stage racers.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
) and at times, when results were very weird, I would rerun the stage just for curiosity (while obviously keeping the original outcome for the report) and reruns often had very different outcomes. 
